Activists in Paterson urge US attorney to intervene in Jameek Lowery case

PATERSON — Social justice activists on Tuesday called for federal authorities to conduct their own investigation into the January 2019 police custody death of 27-year-old Jameek Lowery.

The activists are citing news stories about an autopsy performed for the Lowery family’s lawsuit against the Paterson Police Department that reportedly contradicts the findings of the New Jersey Medical Examiner’s Office.

The Associated Press, as part of a package about police custody deaths, has reported that the family lawsuit autopsy said Lowery was a homicide victim who suffered “compressive choking,” fractured fingers, bruises, and bleeding from the nose and mouth.

The state medical examiner attributed Lowery’s death to an “adverse reaction” involving an unspecified preexisting medical problem and the illegal drugs he ingested.

Paterson Press has asked the Lowery family lawyers for a copy of the private autopsy multiple times but has not gotten a response. The state has not made public its official autopsy.

Lowery's sister, Jamilyha, said Tuesday that she never believed the reports that said her brother’s death involved illegal drugs. The sister said she had seen Lowery at his hospital bedside two days before he died, with a bruised face, a swollen eye and blood on his fingers.

In his final minutes of consciousness, Lowery posted a Facebook Live video he recorded at police headquarters, saying he was paranoid from taking drugs and that cops wanted to kill him. He lost consciousness during the ambulance ride from headquarters to St. Joseph’s University Medical Center in Paterson.

The Passaic County Prosecutor’s Office report released seven months after Lowery’s death said he became “physically combative” upon entering the ambulance and the accompanying officers resorted to “compliance holds” and striking him in order to “gain control" and "secure his wrists."

There is no police body-camera footage of the incident because Paterson was last among New Jersey’s major cities to equip its cops with the recording devices.

Jamilyha Lowery believes the autopsy done for the family lawsuit offers the true account of her brother’s death.

The author of this new report — which came at the behest of Shaquana Duncan, the mother of one of Lowery’s children — is Dr. Michael Baden. A former chief medical examiner for New York City, Baden is the same medical professional behind the independent autopsy in the George Floyd case in Minneapolis. The release of Baden’s report is part of an ongoing investigation by The Associated Press that includes a PBS documentary that aired Tuesday night.

Hours before the PBS documentary aired, Black Lives Matter Paterson stood with Lowery’s family members and social justice activists at 200 Federal Plaza to call for a federal investigation into the 2019 death.

“We're calling on the Department of Justice to come in and finally fix this corruptness that has been taking place for generations in the city of Paterson,” said BLM leader Zellie Thomas, “so this family can finally have some peace of mind.”

“We don’t trust the county prosecutor’s investigation,” Thomas said. “You know why? Because the county prosecutor also investigated these corrupt police officers and said they were not guilty of any wrongdoing.”

Thomas was referring to the “robbery squad” scandal in 2022 in which county prosecutors dropped an investigation into five police officers who later admitted in federal court to a scheme to assault and steal from Paterson residents.

Yannick Wood, a director at the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, said the county’s medical examiner should be among those to face consequences for releasing a report that “failed to capture the horror” of Lowery’s death.

“The autopsy neglected to observe his fractured fingers, evidence that he was choked, and also did not connect the blunt force trauma endured causing his death," Wood said. “They blamed Mr. Lowery for his own death — that’s what they did."

The release of the private autopsy, according to Lowery’s sister, was delayed because the state wasn’t timely in handing over all the collected evidence. She said she has persevered even as her faith has wavered at times.

“I made a promise to him that until my last dying breath I’m going to fight until he gets justice," she said.

Chard King, Lowery’s father, broke down in tears as he recounted the toll his son’s death has had on his family. “This has destroyed a lot of things in our lives,” King said. “These cops who killed my son shouldn’t be walking around on the street.”

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Jameek Lowery case: Activists urge US attorney to intervene